Caskets have for many years been fabricated of wood. Fine woods, such as those used in the manufacture of fine furniture, are often used, for example, mahogany, cherry, oak and the like. As is to be expected, one of the greatest costs associated with the manufacture of wood caskets is the cost of the wood itself. At least two factors drive this cost.
First, the cost per unit length of these fine woods is relatively expensive. Second, it is desirable, from an aesthetic standpoint, to utilize so-called "full length" boards and panels in the construction of wood caskets, that is boards and panels that are the full length of the portion of the casket to be constructed, for example shell side wall, shell end wall and/or cap, rather than short pieces or "scrap." This is because it is desirable to have a uniform wood grain the entire length of the casket, whether it be for the casket shell side walls and end walls, each of which are normally constructed of a single, unitary full length panel, or for the casket caps, which are fabricated of a plurality of full length boards formed into a convex shape for the crown portion of the cap and then sawed in two to create the separate head end and the foot end caps. The former provides for a continuous wood grain on the casket shell side walls and end walls; and the latter provides for a continuous wood grain for each of the boards forming the crowns of the head end and foot end caps. Utilizing such full length boards and panels results in smaller boards and portions of panels, which are cut from the full length boards and panels, being scrapped, thus increasing manufacturing costs.
It would be desirable from a cost perspective to be able to utilize smaller pieces of wood in the construction of wood caskets, for example to use more than one panel to fabricate a casket shell side wall or end wall, and/or to utilize something other than full length boards to fabricate the casket lids. However, prior attempts have not met with complete success.
For example, if one were to abut a pair of wood panels together to form a casket shell side wall, joint is readily apparent to observers of the casket shell side wall, not only because of the seam created by the abutted edges of the panels, but because of the discontinuous or non-matching wood grains of the two panels, i.e. the wood grain is discontinuous at the seam and is therefore not continuous across the joint from one panel to the other panel. Such is generally unsightly and therefore undesirable.
Second, if one were to utilize non-full length boards from which to fabricate the head and the foot end lids, the grains of each and every corresponding board of the head end cap and foot end cap would be non-matching and would be readily apparent upon viewing the casket with both caps in the closed position.
Yet another drawback to utilizing non-full length boards from which to manufacture the head end and foot end caps is that, by and large, the current tooling in the industry is set up to fabricate these lids from full length boards; if non-full length boards were utilized, new tooling would likely have to be designed, purchased and/or built and then implemented.